:dubious:
Hmmm…
This must be something that only Pink Floyd fans (one of which I am not) can get worked up about. I listened to the sample from Ooner’s link, and I honestly don’t see (or hear) anything wrong with it. Granted, I’m not a big fan of falsetto, either, but what I heard didn’t offend me in the least, nor cause my ears to bleed, nor even ignite even the smallest spark of indignation, righteous or otherwise. I give it a solid “Meh”.
Everything I’ve read about the band indicates that the female singer is really a female, not a guy in drag, if that’s what you were thinking.
I think people should take a deep breath and settle down. If we all ran around screaming like the world was going to end when a band did a cover we didn’t like, well… no one would ever get anything else done and it is quite possible Ricola throat lozenges would rule the world. I happen to like the Scissor Sisters because they do try new variations on old concepts. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t but they’re at least a break from the current trend of American Idol-ish saccharine and blah.
For preference, I will admit that I’d choose “Take Your Mama” or “Laura” over their cover of “Comfortably Numb”.
I’d be the first to say the Roger Waters years were bombastic, but he got beyond the moog synthesizers and nursery rhyme cadence. I often wonder if people who don’t use drugs really do listen to Pink Floyd’s first albums, but then, I wonder if anyone really listens to the White Stripes. Sometimes I suspect music, for some people, is all about what they say they like, and less about what they like, but it may be my confusion of how tedious nonsense can be enjoyable.
It couldn’t have been worse than Cindy Lauper doing Another Brick in the Wall part 3.
-lv
Uh, I do. I’ve listened to every CD of theirs dozens of time. It’s great music. Sounds like you’re suffering from a little closed-mind syndrome - “I don’t like that music, although I haven’t really listened to it, and since I don’t like it, the people who claim they do must be lying.”
I also listen to Eminem, and Patsy Cline. Good music is where you find it. Including early Pink Floyd albums.
I like Pink Floyd, but I really think this version of the song is a lot of fun. Think Abba/Bee Gees remake and you’ve got it.
To those going into apoplexy over this, just think about all the lameass cover bands all over the world murdering Pink Floyd songs regularly and thinking they’re oh so cool. At least Scissor Sisters have talent and a wicked sense of humor.
“In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.” - Andre Maurois
Substitute “music” for “literature” in that quotation. I have very strong opinions on music at times as well, but I usually manage to not call others lemmings in the process.
Indeed!
I hate cover songs that sound like the original. I’ve done a few cover tracks in my life and I alwayed tried to put some of my own style into them. I’ve never understood why bands do a cover and work hard at making it sound the same. We’ve already heard that version!
That said, a cover band at a bar is different.
As for the SNL song. I have to give the band a nod for attempting to give the Floyd song their own sound. I didn’t think they pulled it off though. The music was pretty cool but I thought the lyrics sounded out of place. Like they had to force too many words in too fast to make them fit.
Personally, I think they should have just tweaked the music in the chorus enough to make it their own song. Then just write their own lyrics. The chorus was the only place I heard the original music anyway. The rest just sounded like a basic dance groove.
Their first song did sound like Elton. I liked it. I don’t know if I’d run out and buy the CD, but I enjoyed listening to it for free. 
And, as someone mentioned above, the band is damn tight. The male singer is a bucket of energy and I have to respect anyone who can do the Peanuts Dance through an entire song, sing, and not be out of breath. It didn’t look like they were pulling an Ashly Simpson.
Will you marry me, Loopydude?
But sorry, I’m up here, getcher own tower.
I realize that some people find it clever, but I don’t. Or even remotely funny. I suppose it’s a matter of taste.
I, on the other hand, DO call them lemmings, as you can clearly see by reading my posts above.
Like many college students I’ve seen, you assume that anyone who disagrees with you is “closed minded,” and “ignorant.” I actually possess the old Pink Floyd and first White Stripes CDs, since I was told I would like them, and tried to like them, and admit to myself finally, after several listens, “no, it’s not me, it’s the music. There’s nothing there for me.”
Yeah, I hope there’s no one who’s really questioning that some folks choose their music on the basis of what they think will seem cool to others.
I mean, that’s the basis of the hipster lifestyle.
I’m sorry, but I fucking hated it. I don’t see the point of “making something your own” when doing so produces this steaming log of an attrocity. This is not in the “so bad it’s paradoxically good, with arch camp on the side” catagory. Nope, these guys aren’t going to get a pass because they’re trippy drag queens riding the campwagon to kitschy fabulousnous. That cover is odious. The reason Pink Floyd did not do Bee-Gees-style disco is because they had the good sense to know it would have sucked. The reason the Bee-Gees stayed away from theme-driven 70s guitar rock is because it would have been an abortion. This cover is like mixing Bass ale and grenadine together and expecting it not to taste like shit.
And so the lesson we learn today, kiddies, is never try to do anything on your own without the prior approval of everyone else.
It’s ok to put a personal touch onto a cover song but you still have to respect the original material, especially when it’s a classic that everybody knows. You have to retain the soul of the song, the elements that made people like it to begin with, whether it be the melody or the beat or the mood or the guitar riff. The elements that makes people like “Comfortably Numb” are the mood, the lyrics, the gutar solos and the slow, enveloping chordal movements. The Scissor Sisters jettisoned almost all of that. They changed a meditative dirge about heroin addiction into an uptempo, weightless dance number with an unpleasant, falsetto vocal line and no preservation of the original melody. The tempo was so fast and the vocals so superficial in their readings that the lyrics were almost unintelligible and the meaning of the song was completely lost.
I don’t understand what they were trying to do. What about the song did they like? It just seemed like they were mocking it.
That Barry Gibb wannabe isn’t a hair on David Gilmoure’s ass.
Perhaps that was the point?
That’s fine, and if you had said, “I don’t like the White Stripes”, I’d have no problem with it. What made you close-minded is when you went further and said,
Which is the very attitude you just accused me of. Because YOU don’t like the White Stripes, you assume that other people are just faking when they say they do, because it’s ‘tedious nonsense’.
In fact, it isn’t tedious nonsense, it’s damned fine music. They are one of the most critically acclaimed bands to come along in a long time. YOU don’t have to like it, and that’s fine. There’s lots of music that I recognize is ‘good’, but which I personally don’t care to hear. But I wouldn’t dream of making sweeping conclusions about the people who’s tastes vary.
Just wait until you guys find about Luther Wright and the Wrongs, who remade the entire album as country music.
http://www.backporchrecords.com/albumpages/RebuildtheWall/rebuildthewall.htm
As for the respect due Pink Floyd, the band’s work was completely ravaged by “themselves” in the bogus late-80’s reunion tour and new album, which was all dry ice and no flying pig. Watch the concert movie Pulse, which is a rehashing of Pink Floyd hits with a light show. You will gasp when, in the middle of Comfortably Numb, a disco ball drops and turns. I doubt you can watch this debacle and have any outrage left for what The Scissor Sisters have done.